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Empathy Machines

This American Life, Podcasting, and the Public Radio Structure of Feeling
Brief Description
The first book-length treatment of This American Life, Empathy Machines contextualizes the influential show within the history of radio, looking back to radio’s golden era and the para-social connections that it encouraged, as well as the formation of NPR in the 1960s and the “Great Society... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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Empathy Machines explores This American Life as a crucial cultural institution in the evolution of empathy as a “liberal feeling” central to podcast storytelling and the neoliberal era in which it developed.

Empathy Machines explores This American Life as a crucial cultural institution in the evolution of empathy as a “liberal feeling” central to podcast storytelling and the neoliberal era in which it developed.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The first book-length treatment of This American Life, Empathy Machines contextualizes the influential show within the history of radio, looking back to radio’s golden era and the para-social connections that it encouraged, as well as the formation of NPR in the 1960s and the “Great Society Liberalism” that guided its programming and approach to the audience.

Empathy Machines identifies This American Life as a central cultural institution in the evolution of empathy as a “liberal feeling” central to podcast storytelling and the neoliberal era in which it developed. This American Life revitalized the public radio traditions of investigative journalism and sonically inventive audio production.

An early adopter of podcasting as a time-shifted delivery mechanism for its broadcast content, the program also ushered in appointment listening, a key innovation and disruption in the emerging chaotic attention economy of the 21st century.

Empathy Machines centers This American Life as a model for prioritizing empathy as an affective and ideological strategy for feeling liberal as liberal democracy’s precarious balance of opposites began to fracture into hypercapitalism, atavistic ethnonationalism, and new identity politics.

Series: Bloomsbury Podcast Studies

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  • Podcasting in a Platform Age
    Podcasting in a Platform Age explores the transition underway in podcasting by considering how the influx of legacy and new media interest in the medium is injecting professional and corporate logics into what had been largely an amateur media form. Many of the most high-profile podcasts today, however, are produced by highly-skilled media professionals, some of whom are employees of...
    Paperback
    $5199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Empathy Machines
    The first book-length treatment of This American Life, Empathy Machines contextualizes the influential show within the history of radio, looking back to radio’s golden era and the para-social connections that it encouraged, as well as the formation of NPR in the 1960s and the “Great Society Liberalism” that guided its programming and approach to the audience. Empathy Machines identifies This...
    Paperback
    $4999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9798765111680

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 19 February 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Illustration: 1 bw illus

Audience: Tertiary education

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 138.0mm

Height: 214.0mm

Weight: 426g

Pages: 352

About the Author

Jason Loviglio is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), USA. He is the founding chair of the Media and Communication Studies Department at UMBC, and he is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion of Radio and Podcast Studies (2022) and Radio Journal: Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media (2017–present).

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